[itronitron]

I like the theory that jokes are funny to the extent they enable a discovery of 'shared knowledge' between the teller and audience.

I'll provide a light bulb joke as an example...

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? A: That's not funny.

[gosub100]

Shared beliefs, when they start complaining about things the audience relates to. Or completely obvious things we haven't noticed. A really funny monologue I saw once was a European comedian remarking how many different meanings can be carried by the word 'ass' and how often they are contradictory. Very clever observation.

[nvader]

For the curious, I suspect this was Ismo. I love his with on pointing out the incongruities in surface level features of English.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RAGcDi0DRtU